Corporate Email systems & Exchange Alternatives?

[The_KiD]

Our email server is currently pop3 running off a custom linux box.

This has served our company well for the last 6 years, however we are now beginning to outgrow it use and it is having problems coping with the volumes of email now going through it.

So we are beginning to look for alternatives, we have priced up exchange on 3 different occasions, but have always come back to the fact that due to the number of users (380) it has always been way above what we are willing to spend. Normally comes out at about £15,000 including hardware software & licenses.

So what we would like is some alternative viable corporate email solution.

Something that has shared address books and shared callendars and something that is easily managed.

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[#Chri5#]

You could have a look at:

http://www.icewarp.com/

We've been using Merek for a few years for just SMTP/POP3 on a public server and it's been fine. The Groupware has an Outlook connector.

I know an ISP that uses it for over 20,000 users split between three servers and it's starting to creek on those numbers.

The Enterprise version for 500 user is 3000 USD.

 

[#Chri5#]

Oh, and something else to look at is Gordano NTMail which has been around for donkey's years. Not used it myself but I'm sure I read a good review of it PC Pro once. It has groupware and Outlook integration too.

http://www.ntmail.co.uk/

 

[The_KiD]

Looks almost perfect, thanks Chris. Never heard of it before, but it may just be what we need.

 

[JonnyT]

Kerio MailServer is very good & cross-platform.

MDaemon is also well thought of.

Both have connectors for MS Exchange to enable shared calendars etc.

 

[Curiosityx]

What type of domain environment are you using if any?

 

[The_KiD]

We are using Active Directory on Windows 2000 Server.

 

[stockhausen]

I am looking for something similar to this, except that all I really want is a central repositry for emails so that I can back them up easily, reliably and regularly. I am not really interested in Calendaring, Meeting invites, etc.

What currently happens is that people (about five) connect to our ISP and download emails to their (local) Outlook.pst file. They don't bother to backup their .PST files.

I would like to set up a Linux server that would collect emails from our ISP and then allow individual users to open them (in Outlook) whilst leaving the original on the mailserver. We often get attachments with the emails (Word documents, Powerpoint presentations, spreadsheets and .PDFs). The emails are as often in HTML format as not.

Any suggestions?